Whatever else Tuesday may bring, it looks poised to be a banner day for those of us who have long sought to end America's failed war on drugs. And if the stars and voter participation align, it may indeed prove a tipping point in the long fight toward a possible landslide for Drug War Reform.
Citizens across the country will vote Tuesday on more initiatives to reform drug control policy than at any other time in American history. This is a coup in itself, of course, reflecting how much the movement to end the Drug War has gained ground in recent years. But to seal the deal and truly begin to close this harrowingly destructive chapter in American history, voters need to understand how the war has failed for over forty years to curb rates of drug addiction or abuse while instead simply shattering families, tearing communities apart, and wasting taxpayer dollars, all the while sowing popular distrust in law enforcement and filling the nation's jails with predominantly poor, minority, and nonviolent inmates. Above all, the public needs to understand how damaging the war has been not only to other families and communities but to their own.
